The Internet of Accessible Things

W4A continues to be a premiere venue for accessibility research, and we welcome submissions in any of our traditional core areas covering all aspects of web accessibility. We invite your best work that advances our understanding of access for people across the accessibility continuum.

This year we especially encourage submissions in the growing and important area of Internet of Things. Devices are becoming pervasive, smarter and more connected. Everything from our thermostats and smart watches, to our cars and in-home assistants either has or will have an Internet connection within the next few years. The 30 billion devices expected to join the “Internet of Things” (IoT) by 2020 provide an unprecedented opportunity to observe the world through their sensors, and the AI trained on this data will make smarter decisions to help us in our everyday lives.

The Internet of Things presents both promise and peril for accessibility. The promise includes enabling access to device actions using remote interfaces that could be more accessible than the interface built into the device. Pervasive sensing may allow for more accurate health monitoring. As with any new technology, the potential peril is that the IoT devices or the cloud infrastructure used to access them may not be built to be accessible, which may prevent some people from leveraging their advantages. Already we are seeing speech take off as a dominant modality for communication in these devices, with little care paid to how someone who cannot speak or who cannot hear would use them.

We encourage submissions on any of the traditional topics covered at W4A. We have always embraced the potential of new technologies to provide an accessible user experience for everyone. No longer do we look at technology and only look to overcome the potential challenges it could present to users, but we look for how technology can be used to provide an accessible user experience for all. In recognition of the emergence of this new age, the theme for the 15th International Web for All Conference is “Internet of Accessible Things”.

This year, we particularly welcome submissions that address the following topics: